themselves into cats at will; and a certain Huseyn Osman, a harmless individual enough, and a most expert digger, would turn himself into a cat at night-time, not only for the purpose of stealing his brother Muhammed Osman’s dinner, but also in order to protect the tombs which his patron was occupied in excavating.  One of the overseers in some recent excavations was said to have power of detecting all robberies on his works.  The archaeologist, however, is unfortunately unable to rely upon this form of protection, and many are the schemes for the prevention of pilfering which are tried.

In some excavations a sum of money is given to the workman for every antiquity found by him, and these sums are sufficiently high to prevent any outbidding by the dealers.  Work thus becomes very expensive for the archaeologist, who is sometimes called upon to pay L10 or L20 in a day.  The system has also another disadvantage, namely, that the workmen are apt to bring antiquities from far and near to “discover” in their diggings in order to obtain a good price for them.  Nevertheless, it would seem to be the most successful of the systems.  In the Government excavations it is usual to employ a number of overseers to watch for the small finds, while for only the really valuable discoveries is a reward given.

For finding the famous gold hawk’s head at Hieraconpolis a workman received L14, and with this princely sum in his pocket he went to a certain Englishman to ask advice as to the spending of it.  He was troubled, he said, to decide whether to buy a wife or a cow.  He admitted that he had already one wife, and that two of them would be sure to introduce some friction into what was now a peaceful household; and he quite realised that a cow would be less apt to quarrel with his first wife.  The Englishman, very properly, voted for the cow, and the peasant returned home deep in thought.  While pondering over the matter during the next few weeks, he entertained his friends with some freedom, and soon he found to his dismay that he had not enough money left to buy either a wife or a cow.  Thereupon he set to with a will, and soon spent the remaining guineas in riotous living.  When he was next seen by the Englishman he was a beggar, and, what was worse, his taste for evil living had had several weeks of cultivation.

The case of the fortunate finder of a certain great cache of mummies was different.  He received a reward of L400, and this he buried in a very secret place.  When he died his possessions descended to his sons.  After the funeral they sat round the grave of the old man, and very rightly discussed his virtues until the sun set.  Then they returned to the house and began to dig for the hidden money.  For some days they turned the sand of the floor over; but failing to find what they sought, they commenced operations on a patch of desert under the shade of some tamarisks where their father was wont to sit of an afternoon.  It is said that for twelve hours they worked like persons possessed, the men hacking at the ground, and the boys carrying away the sand in baskets to a convenient distance.  But the money was never found.